Functional and Neuroanatomical Bases of Developmental Stuttering: Current Insights

Abstract

Affecting 5% of all preschool-aged children and 1% of the general population, developmental stuttering—also called childhood-onset fluency disorder—is a complex, multifactorial neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by frequent disruption of the fluent flow of speech. Over the past two decades, neuroimaging studies of both children and adults who stutter have begun to provide significant insights into the neurobiological bases of stuttering. This review highlights convergent findings from this body of literature with a focus on functional and structural neuroimaging results that are supported by theoretically driven neurocomputational models of speech production. Updated views on possible mechanisms of stuttering onset and persistence, and perspectives on promising areas for future research into the mechanisms of stuttering, are discussed.